News

Mix: Car stereos, Sun Valley, Foxconn, iPhone 4 film

By Charles Starrett ● Tuesday, June 29, 2010

A number of users are reporting problems getting their iPhones and iPod touches to work with previously-compatible car stereo head units. Owners of Pioneer, JVC, Alpine, and Kenwood receivers have reported problems with their units reading and recognizing the iPhone or iPod, as well as problems playing music back should the device be recognized. The issues also appear to affect users of some iPod- and iPhone-compatible factory stereos; it is unknown whether the issues can be fixed by a software update from Apple, or whether the head units themselves will require updating.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs is expected to appear next month at the annual Allen & Co. media conference in Sun Valley, Idaho. BusinessWeek reports that the conference is frequently attended by notable CEOs and leaders from both the technology and media industries, and speculates that Jobs may be attending in hopes of convincing executives to offer more content for Apple’s products. Jobs has attended the conference twice in the past, in 2005 and 1999; the event has been closed to the press in recent years.

Apple has agreed to let Foxconn shift some of its production of Apple products from its Shenzhen compound to north and central China, according to the Financial Times. The report states that the move is aimed at containing costs, and follows substantial wage increases for a large part of the Shenzhen workforce after a rash of suicides gained international attention earlier this year. Foxconn is said to have proposed to Apple both Tianjin in the north and Henan, China’s most populous province, in central China as potential production sites.

Director Michael Koerbel of Los Angeles, CA has completed a short film entitled “Apple of My Eye” which was shot and edited completely on the iPhone 4. The roughly one minute and 15 second film cost $103 and took 48 hours to make, using the iPhone 4’s 720p HD video recording capabilities and Apple’s iMovie for iPhone video editing application. The film is available to watch on Vimeo and can be seen in embedded form below. [via Macworld UK]